HiT Entertainment and the Dizzy Feet Foundation partnered with Figaro Media to produce several public service announcements to raise awareness about the health benefits of dancing.

On short notice Figaro coordinated and produced a shoot in Hollywood with Nigel and Adam from “So You Think You Can Dance” and Carrie Anne from “Dancing With The Stars” at Source Film Studios. The creative brief called for compositing the live action actors into the 3D world of Angelina Ballerina while they interacted with the virtual characters Alice and Angelina.

Several key tools were used to make these commercials really sell the fact that real people were interacting with 3D animated mice. We shot the live action green screen footage on a RED MX with super speed primes, allowing great flexibility because of the 4k resolution. We also used an AJA IoHD and Conduit Live to pull a live test key with approximate background plates so that we could match lighting and really get the actors to look like they belonged in the world of Angelina Ballerina.

The entire shoot had a very compressed time line; scripts storyboards were literally finalized hours before shooting, we only had a couple of hours with the talent and the crew, gear and studio were booked two days prior to filming (providing plenty of interesting war stories). On top of it all the production required coordination on a global level – approvals were needed from the client in London, New York and Dallas, storyboards were being created in Singapore and we were on the west coast trying to make sure things were being shot the way they needed to be.

Everything went down without a hitch and the end product was a very successful PSA campaign that was a lot of fun. Nigel, Adam and Carrie Ann all had a blast and the good times really came across in the finished pieces.

Andrew Tinker, formerly one of the founding members of the Polyphonic Spree and currently a solo pop artist, has been a friend of ours for a long time. When the opportunity arose to partner with Dolby Labs to produce a music video he was the obvious choice.

Andrew’s album “It Takes The World” is an eclectic mix of styles and there were several initial creative ideas for different songs. Ultimately “B Sweet” was chosen by Dolby because of it’s lighthearted nature and catchy chorus.

The Harbor in Rockwall, TX was chosen as the location for the video and filming covered three of the hottest days of the summer. We were fortunate enough to fit a RED MX and a Phantom HD into the budget along with an Optimo 24-290mm and an Optimo 14-40mm. The shooting schedule was pretty frantic – three days with about 25 setups each day. Ultimately we were able to get everything we needed and, aside from the heat, the weather cooperated.

The creative brief called for some interesting props… Ever wonder how to make layered rainbow cake? What about water soluble confetti? Fake snow? Our production design team did a great job of coming up with colorful props and set pieces that really worked with the slow motion footage we shot with the Phantom HD.

The video was cut and colored at Dolby Labs. One of the perks of working with Dolby is having access to some of their cooler technologies; John Loose re-mixed “B Sweet” into 5.1 and 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound!

The video has not officially been released. Until then, enjoy some photos from the shoot courtesy of Jim Wall.

From deep in the heart of Texas, the Kilroy Show, shot on location at Willie’s Place in Carls Corner, feels like a true honky tonk on your TV set.

Each episode features performances by legendary names in the classic country music world (Mickey Gilley, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc), performances by up-and-coming artists, visits with legends like Willie Nelson and Charley Pride and the famous Kilroy Show house band led by Mike Siler.

This one hour show is shot entirely in 1080i HD with music mixed and produced at Rosewood Studios by your host and legendary music producer Eddie Kilroy the show puts you right on the dance floor.

Technology Used:

Final Cut Pro

Adobe After Effects

PHP / CakePHP

MySQL

AJAX

Located in a small south Texas town, Mustang International’s video production facilities are responsible for the producing the nationally aired “All Around Performance Horse” television show. Surrounded by real cowboys, Mustang has forged relationships that have led them to create the “All Around Ranch Rodeo” – an event and television show with a $50,000 grand prize that has drawn large crowds to Circle T Arena.

Figaro Interactive has played several roles working with the talented folks at Mustang Int.; consultation for the jump into weekly television production (along with the jump the HD), broadcast design for the two TV shows and development of a team signup and management system for their rodeo event.

Technology Used:

VarsityTV is an online channel that provides video of all of Varsity Brands (NCA, UCA etc) cheerleading competitions and behind-the-scenes features on-demand.

Figaro Interactive, in conjunction with Postman Productions, provided consultation during the initial phase of the 07-08 season and developed a workflow that allowed massive amounts of video to be captured, edited, transcoded and uploaded in a highly effecient way.

During the 07-08 season, Figaro was crucial in the deployment and engineering of workstations at national competitions across the country.

A typical day on site began around 5am – deep in the annals of Disney we would setup our workstations – a laptop for capturing and a tower for editing/transcoding. Showtime began around 9am and finished around 10pm. During the course of a day each venue would see around 300-400 performances (and there were up to 4 simultaneously performing/being captured). Because of the efficiency of our setup each and every performance was captured (and then viewed 2 million times over the course of that month).

Continuing to work with Postman Productions and VarsityTV, Figaro Interactive has provided on site editing services for featured stories for the last several years at every major Varsity event. These featured packages are a huge draw for their audience and are a great way to garner additional impressions for Varsity’s advertising partners.

Varsity looks to continue the success of their video on demand service for the years to come and Figaro Interactive will be closely involved in maintaining their competitive advantage.